


Ain’t no sunshine when he’s gone

by lisachan



Series: Leoverse [300]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29382456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisachan/pseuds/lisachan
Summary: Cody still hasn't woken up from his accident.Leo hasn't left his bedside yet.
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Original Male Character(s), Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Leoverse [300]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/30541
Kudos: 1
Collections: COWT - Clash Of the Writing Titans/Chronicles Of Words and Trials





	Ain’t no sunshine when he’s gone

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING:** This story is a **what if** from the original 'verse. In the canon course of events that followed the beginning of Broken Heart Syndrome, **this has never happened**.

Blaine’s been trying to tear Leo off Cody’s bedside for twenty minutes, already. He used all the softness and kindness he could muster, but now he’s at a loss. There are nurses passing by the door almost every two minutes, all of them respectfully but quite annoyedly peeking into the room to try and understand what’s going on, if they’re going to leave soon, what are they even waiting for. And Blaine’s starting to feel uncomfortable, because their presence here, now that visitation hours are over and even Cody’s husband and son have left, is unjustifiable. 

“Love,” he tries again, placing a gentle hand on Leo’s shoulder and squeezing a little to catch his attention, “We have to leave, now. I’m sure the doctors here have it all under control. The nurses must come and do their jobs, honey. They have to check on his IV and they have to get him ready for the night. We need to leave.”

“I can’t.”

“But we must, babe,” Blaine insists patiently, “We shouldn’t even be allowed to _be_ here anymore. We’re the last visitors left.”

“I can’t leave.”

“Sweetie, Timmy’s been home alone with the twins for hours, at this point. We have to get back.”

“You can go, if you want to,” Leo says curtly, probably as annoyed by Blaine’s pleading as Blaine himself is, “But I’m not leaving.”

There’s something definitive in his voice that makes Blaine hold his breath for a moment and consider this situation with some concern. For the last few hours, since they’ve been here, he’s felt like it was his job to bear with Leo’s mood and his unreasonable expectations on reality – such as for example the fact that he expected Vince to just move aside and make room for him upon his arrival, as though he had more rights than him to be with Cody right now – on account of the fact that he must be deeply traumatized. He knows for a fact that there’s almost nothing in the world that scares Leo more than the idea of losing Cody forever, the idea of letting him go without having even had a chance to say goodbye. He knows how heavy this is for him, how hard he must feel, and therefore, because of that, out of _respect_ for that, he’s been lenient.

But this attitude is worrying. Leo’s sitting on this bed, staring hard at Cody’s face, or at least the half of it that’s still visible between his bandages, as though just looking at him could make him somehow regain consciousness. He’s taken his place by his side as though he was convinced that only by feeling him close to himself Cody could ever manage to wake up.

And he’s seeing him and him alone, and no one else.

Not even Blaine.

For the first time since they’ve known each other, Blaine’s in the same room as Leo is and he experiences the harsh, cruel feeling of invisibility that he imagines so many people before him must’ve felt whenever Leo was giving them attention and he suddenly walked into the room. Back then, walking in was enough to shift Leo’s attention from anyone else to himself – he didn’t even have to work for it, it happened naturally. Blaine appeared, and Leo would just be his, snap, just like that, in less than a second.

Now he’s here, standing by his husband, stroking his shoulder, trying to pull him away from the bed upon which his ex boyfriend from college lies, pale and unconscious and battered and broken, and Leo can’t even see him.

He doesn’t matter.

“Leo, baby,” he tries one last time, swallowing hard, tightening the grip of his fingers around Leo’s shoulder in a desperate attempt to make him _feel him_ , if not see him, again, “Listen to me. Whether we stay here or not, it won’t change anything for Cody. He’s sleeping, now, he can’t see you. He can’t hear you. He doesn’t know you’re there.” He sighs deeply. “I’ll tell the nurses to call us first thing if anything changes. The moment he wakes up, sweetie, I _swear_ , I’ll get you here before even Vince shows up. You’ll be the first through this door, the first he sees when he wakes up. But we’ve got to leave, now. Please. Come with me.”

Leo doesn’t move right away. He takes a second or two, perhaps to gather his thoughts?, or maybe just to calm down. Then he turns around to face him, and he does that moving tensely, mechanically, as though his muscles, bones and tendons had forgotten how to produce movement. “Blaine,” he says. He sounds unusually patient, as though he was trying to explain something banal, that really shouldn’t need any further explanation, to a particularly dense kid. “You can go. You should go— as a matter of fact, you must. But I need to stay. I have to. I need to.”

“Leonard,” Blaine spits it out, unable to control himself any longer, angered and unreasonably jealous of the way Leo’s speaking, the words he’s using, the finality in his stare, “You won’t wake him up by just sitting by his side all night.”

Leo’s jaw tenses and his blue eyes harden, and then Blaine knows, he made a stupid mistake. He said something unnecessary and hurtful that’s not going to be forgiven. It’s going to be piled up on top of the many, many things about him Leo will never be able to forgive.

“I have to hope,” Leo says. It evidently costs him to keep speaking to him, to keep looking at him, even. He does, though, and that’s the measure of the love he feels for him, Blaine knows that. Anyone else would’ve been mercilessly kicked out of the room for saying what he dared to say just now. 

He says nothing else, and Blaine knows there’s nothing else to say. Sighing deeply, he stops stroking his shoulder and takes one step back and away from him. Leo seems to appreciate it, in the way his whole body relaxes, now that they’re not touching anymore. Now that he can redirect the whole of his life force to try and heal what cannot be healed. What might never be healed.

“Alright,” Blaine surrenders, because he’s got no other choice, “I’ll be back here first thing in the morning.”

Leo shakes his head. “Don’t worry,” he says. Blaine can almost see him. Close around the mysterious thing Cody and him have, the mysterious thing they _are_ , like a carnivorous flower around a fly. He’s shutting him out. It’s fucking painful. “You’ll have to get the kids to school. I’m sure you have a lot of things to do. Take your time. I can take care of him by myself.”

“Love—” Blaine tries, but Leo’s quick to shut him up.

“I can take care of him by myself,” he repeats confidently.

That’s for sure, Blaine thinks as he leans in to kiss him on the forehead and then leaves. But who will take care of you, when Cody’s husband comes back in the morning and finds you still here?

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the first week of COWT #11 @ landedifandom.net  
> Prompt: M3, hope


End file.
